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QUnit evolving JavaScript testing

One of the less mentioned, but important, projects of the jQuery Foundation is QUnit, a JavaScript unit testing framework. With the new 1.11 release not only fixing bugs but also adding a runtime display for individual tests and a new theme, the developers of QUnit are now looking for input as to how QUnit and JavaScript testing should evolve.

QUnit evolved from a test runner developed in 2006 by John Resig. In 2008 it was enhanced by Resig and Jörn Zaefferer to become a standalone tool called QUnit, and in 2009 it cut the jQuery dependency cord and became a fully standalone project with its own GitHub repository – though it took until October 2011 for a version 1.0.0 to be released. QUnit is now used to test not only jQuery libraries but also projects such as Ember.js and, because of its wider use, Zaefferer is soliciting input on the future of QUnit.

In a blog post, he notes that the initial feedback shows people like QUnit because it is easy to get started with, but they are also looking for more documentation and guides to integrating it with CI tools. Zaefferer says they are already working on the documentation, and also on plans to split the code base from its current single JavaScript file into a set of more manageable modules.

Details of the other changes in QUnit 1.11 can be found in the changelog with the code for the MIT-licensed framework being available from its GitHub repository or from the project's home page.